Art and Propaganda at the Wallace Collection

In September 1939, as London prepared for the bombings, the masterpieces of the Wallace Collection left Hertford House. Monumental paintings by François Boucher, furnishings, and precious objects were moved to the English countryside to protect them from the war. The museum's rooms remained empty. It was precisely at that moment that the building began to fulfill an unexpected function. The exhibition The Wallace Collection at War reconstructs this little-known interlude in the history of the London museum. Drawing on archives, catalogues, photographs, and original materials, the project recounts how Hertford House was temporarily transformed into a space dedicated to British cultural mobilization during the Second World War. The exhibition focuses primarily on two exhibitions organized in 1942: Artists Aid Russia and Twenty-Five Years of Progress. Both took place after the Soviet Union's entry into the conflict on the Allied side and aimed to strengthen the Anglo-Soviet alliance through images, art, and propaganda. The exhibition also features photographs of the makeshift storage facilities where the collections were kept during the war, along with posters, catalogues, and works actually exhibited in 1942. The result is not only a historical reconstruction, but also a reflection on the role that museums can play in times of political and military crisis.